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So I kinda want make a universal Chaos Codex. The units included would be:

HQs
Typhus
Chaos Lord
Chaos Sorcerer
Daemon Prince
Warpsmith
Dark Apostle
Great Unclean One
Heralds Of Nurgle
Renegade General
Renegade Command Squad
Renegade Enforcer

Troops
Chaos Space Marines
Cultists
Renegade Militia
Renegade Veterans
Plaguebearers
Nurglings
Plague Zombies

Elites
Chosen
Possessed
Chaos Terminators
Helbrute
Mutliators
Beasts Of Nurgle
Renegade Experiments
Plague Marines
Ordnance Tyrant

Fast Attack
Plague Drones Of Nurgle
Chaos FuriesChaos Bikers
Chaos Rhino
Chaos Spawn
Raptors
Warp Talons
Heldrake
Renegade Riders
Chimera

Heavy Support
Havocs
Obliterators
Defiler
Forgefiend
Maulerfiend
Chaos Land Raider
Chaos Vindicator
Chaos Predator
Soul Grinder
Leman Russ
Basilisk
Wyvern
Plague Wardens

Lords Of War
Vilesword
Renegade Knight

Edit: Dropped down to just Nurgle units.

In an edition where Battle Brothers-tiers Allies don't exist, I'd probably be all for this. As you can currently ally all these things into a single army, however, I don't think there's really a reason to put all those units in a single codex.

By making one massive (arguably difficult to search through) codex, you risk losing unique rules that add flavor to various sub-factions. The rules renegades use to make flavorful armies based on their HQs, for instance, would either be lost or else be complicated to incorporate into a CAD shared by daemons and marines.

What do you like about the idea of mixing all the chaos books into one? What's the appeal to doing that? I see the counter-argument (crowded book, possible loss of special snowflake rules, complicated in-book interactions), but I'm not sure what you would actually gain by doing this other than being able to fit marines and renegades in the same book without taking an HQ for an allied detachment.


Personally, I'd kind of like to see something along the lines of KDK where daemons, renegades, and marines united by a certain fixation or god alignment appear in the same book with formations and wargear appropriate for them.

So you could do Nurgle Daemonkin, Slaanesh Daemonkin, and even something like Codex: Machine Fiends where you have rules for Iron Warriors, dark mechanicus, etc., but less access to daemons of a given god. The point of this would be to provide options for a unified theme within an army, be it obsession with a given god, the pursuit of dark technology, non-chaotic renegades fighting against the imperium, or whatever.

Wyldhunt wrote:
In an edition where Battle Brothers-tiers Allies don't exist, I'd probably be all for this. As you can currently ally all these things into a single army, however, I don't think there's really a reason to put all those units in a single codex.

By making one massive (arguably difficult to search through) codex, you risk losing unique rules that add flavor to various sub-factions. The rules renegades use to make flavorful armies based on their HQs, for instance, would either be lost or else be complicated to incorporate into a CAD shared by daemons and marines.

What do you like about the idea of mixing all the chaos books into one? What's the appeal to doing that? I see the counter-argument (crowded book, possible loss of special snowflake rules, complicated in-book interactions), but I'm not sure what you would actually gain by doing this other than being able to fit marines and renegades in the same book without taking an HQ for an allied detachment.


Personally, I'd kind of like to see something along the lines of KDK where daemons, renegades, and marines united by a certain fixation or god alignment appear in the same book with formations and wargear appropriate for them.

So you could do Nurgle Daemonkin, Slaanesh Daemonkin, and even something like Codex: Machine Fiends where you have rules for Iron Warriors, dark mechanicus, etc., but less access to daemons of a given god. The point of this would be to provide options for a unified theme within an army, be it obsession with a given god, the pursuit of dark technology, non-chaotic renegades fighting against the imperium, or whatever.

The idea behind this was to do a sweeping fix of Chaos in general (probably some minor nerfs to Daemons, buffs to CSM, and slight buffs to Renegades).

But you do have a point. (Plus, as a Nurgle man myself, I'd probably only use the Nurgle bits.)

I'll work on Nurgle stuff, then.

In that case, I'd probably recommend focusing on one book or faction at a time. Break it down into smaller projects rather than one massive one that probably doesn't work as well as a single book as it would as several smaller books.

If Imma just do Nurgle, I'd want all the Nurglese in one spot. Daemons, Marines, and Renegades.

I'd say just wait for the Nurgle Daemonkin codex to come out since the units you listed follow the same pattern as the KDK codex, but with each passing release, I get the feeling that Daemonkin was only ever meant to be a Khorne thing. It makes sense because A) Khorne is GW's favorite Chaos and B) mono-Khorne lists were always the weakest because no access to psychic powers. The Blood-tithe fills that gap. To release other Daemonkin books would diminish KDK since the other Daemonkin armies would have powers and "tithe" style table bonuses.

If you want all your rules to come from the same codex, 40k is not the game for you. It used to be like that, and oh how I wish it still could be, but sadly GW has released way too many codicies, allie armies & supplements
The only way to "focus" on 1 faction is to self-impose it. I, for example, play Daemons and although I have a Heldrake, the CSM & KDK codices, I have rarely played with anything other than pure Deamons. Even then, I now need 2 books for that: the Codex & the Wulfen book for all those sweet relics/formations. Plus it is nice to have printed rules for Belakor.

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As far as doing homebrew content there's no good reason not to do a big combined book (beyond the problem of trying to do too much content). You might look at the second 3e CSM book for inspiration; it had a common 'Chaos Space Marines' list and nine add-on bits at the end to define what additional options and restrictions came with an army for each of the original Legions.

That said one of my favourite fan-books was a combined Inquisition Codex from 5e that was written as four separate lists (Inquisition, GK, Deathwatch, Sisters) with a section in the front describing the restrictions on taking units from multiple lists in the same detachment; it kept individual 'lists' compartmentalized and let you have a common armoury at the same time.

If you're going to do an absolute combined Chaos book and you're not afraid of leaving some of the assumptions of the current game at the door I'd advise standardizing Marks a lot more. Daemon of (X), Mark of (X), and Cult Marines are all distinct rules that do distinct things, balancing twelve different common special rules when you can build an army around any one of them could get out of hand very quickly. If they were all standardized (for instance: if the Mark of Nurgle granted FNP whether it's on a Plaguebearer, a renegade Ogryn, or a Chaos Marine, and in an entirely Nurgle army/an army with a Nurgle warlord you could pay an extra cost to give some models +1 T) it'd make things a lot easier.

Some equivalent of Marks for vehicles, better options for Chaos Undivided, and more Daemon Weapons could also be interesting.